TrendER Insights went out to the street to interview local South African individuals to find out their views and opinions with regards to the state of TV commercials in South Africa.
South Africans feel that the nature and quality of South African commercials has come a long way and the standard is becoming increasingly better by the day. This is due to the fact that they are becoming more and more relevant to the consumer, with messaging that they can relate to. What people like most about South African commercials is the humour and light heartedness in them.
One of the key areas that TV commercials showed a strong appeal is also their ability to create local relevance and resonance "very local, but also quite international" - as mentioned by one of the respondents. Even though they understand that some brand had high global relevance the fact that it is able to adapt to the South Africans way of life and values builds a lot of merit with the consumer.
However there is a thin line between representing your target market in your commercial to representing product relevance and just being plain stereotypical and offensive in commercials. This is evident within the categories that are considered the least liked. Which unearthed very strong emotional opinions and comments regarding the approach, cast and a representation of the consumers who would most likely use those products.
TV commercials still prove to provide high product consideration for consumers to purchase a product. However the communication needs to be relevant to the consumer, in other words the messaging needs to be appealing and enticing enough to invoke interest to the consumer. When consumers feel that the TV commercial is "speaking" to them, they are very likely to act and purchase the product or service being advertised.
